Haunted Hearts

Chapter 3: Ongoing Trip

The journey to Stonegate Castle was long and muddy. Raeliana sat beside Isabella at the depot, awaiting the next train. She entertained the idea of asking Isabella to book a room at a nearby hotel but forced herself to refrain. With all the debts paid and their house sold, she was left with a small inheritance—enough for luxuries now but not sufficient for a lifetime without extreme hard work.

Perhaps if Heinz Ackerman had been less generous, there would have been more for his daughter, but Raeliana couldn't begrudge him. He had desired a specific lifestyle for his family and achieved it, even if it meant being less judicious with a physician's income.

Some might have labeled him a fool for choosing medicine over banking, but Raeliana knew her father could never have entertained such ideas. His thoughts were lofty—he always wanted to help people, and he did.

Raeliana's mother had been one of those many souls who owe their lives to him. Raeliana could not and would not fund fault with him, even though their home was now gone, and with it, all the happiness she has once possessed.

She and Isabella sat primly on the short bench still waiting for their ride. Raeliana sighed and closed her eyes wishing that she could instead loosen her corset and lay down on a mattress while waiting.

"Hey, are you sure you want to do this, Rae?" Isabella asked, her black-gloved hands holding her purse in a nervous death grip. "You've lived in London for so long, and I'll be so sad thinking I won't get to see you that much anymore. What if you won't like York? What if you won't like Lord Wainwright and the Castle? Will you think of coming back?"

"I am hoping we can stay long enough to find out. I am already thankful that you are atleast accompanying me for a short while, before you go back." Raeliana answered. The spirit of a rueful smile crossing her lips. She had thought it prudent not to mention to her bestfriend that Lord Wainwright expected a man. Now she wondered how she can break the news to her.

"Ofcourse, it's because I care about you so much. Though I cannot help but feel like we've made a mistake. It's just me being superstitious, ofcourse, but I have a bad feeling about this place we are heading to."

Raeliana thought a moment of Isabella's words. She had never quite sorted out her own feelings about this trip. That was the odd thing about the escape. One never thought about where one was going, but only focusing of the means to get out.

"We'll be alright. Lord Wainwright might be quite charming too," she said, looking at Isabella, who gave her a funny look.

"It doesn't matter if he's charming. Actually, it's always the charming ones that have bad intentions." Isabella stared at the foggy side in front of us, checking to see if a train was arriving or not. Mumbling, she said, "Look, I just don't think this trip is proper for a lady such as yourself."

A lady such as yourself. Such as yourself.

Raeliana squeezed her eyes shut. That was the least what she wanted to hear from her bestfriend. She never wanted to hear those words again. Those were his words.

A man like me can't marry a lady such as yourself.

Slowly, Raeliana opened her eyes again and stared at the misty yellow light that was moving towards them down the tracks. Her mind drifted back to finer days when her father was still alive, and the world had made sense.

She recalls her favorite book, Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe. Her romantically inclined imagination placed herself in the role of Rebecca. Unlike Rebecca, she was not as dark; her hair, blessed with thickness, was brunette. Her eyes weren't dark either. They were emerald green, and some would say, overly large for her fragile face.

In her reveries, Sean had always been Ivanhoe. As it turned out, fiction has strangely twisted into the truth. Sean had been Ivanhoe, for Ivanhoe had married Lady Rowena.

"This is the right thing to do, I feel it," Raeliana found herself saying, even though Isabella was up off the bench and distractedly instructing a boy to help with their bags. "I feel it..." She repeated as she then stood up to join her friend going inside the train.